I reached the top of the hill, and almost tripped over Linn, who was lying across the path where she had fallen, her jaws still holding a scrap of fabric from the man’s tunic. Her teeth were bared in a last grimace of challenge, and her eyes stared blindly up at the sky. Her brave tail lay limp in the dirt. Her hair was drenched with blood from the long, slicing wound across her throat, and small red pools formed among the rocks and ferns. I suppose it was a good death for a dog, to lose her life in defense of the one she loved. I only knew my friend was gone, and now I was really alone.

She was a big dog, and I was still quite a small girl. Nonetheless, before dusk I carried her back to the cave mouth, and laid her down on the grass. Then, trembling from head to foot, I crept into the smallest space I could find under the rock wall, and wrapped the cloak all about me, and I tried to make my mind as quiet as a feather in the breeze and as still as a stone. But my body shook and shivered, and my spirit was full of fear and hatred and shame. I thought that I would never be clean again.

At dusk they came. I heard their voices and I did not move. They knew what had happened. I thought later, if it had indeed been my brothers I had seen before, drifting out there on the tranquil waters, how it must have been for Conor, seeing it all as it passed, unable to act until the sun set. They exchanged words in low, furious voices.

“Diarmid? Cormack?” Liam queried.

“No, let Cormack stay here and tend to the dog. I will go. This task is mine.” Finbar’s voice was shaking.

Then, peering between my fingers in the half light, I saw the three of them take cloak and knife from the cave, and slip away into the forest with death in their eyes.

Conor knew where I was. I felt his mind reach out to touch mine, but I drew deeper into myself. He did not approach me, not yet. Padriac, blinking back tears of rage and confusion, set about rekindling the fire and lighting the lamps and heating water. Cormack’s face was like a carving in stone as he took the spade and began to dig a resting place for the bloodied remains of his dog.

After a while, Conor came over to sit near my bolt-hole. I remember still the feeling of solid rock at my back, how I pressed myself in tight against the wall, curled in on myself as small as I could, biting my knuckles, one arm up over my head in protection. I remember wishing the earth would absorb me, take me in and soak up the hurt and guilt and the wretchedness. I was full of hate; hate for the men who had done this, hate for the innocent who had led them to me, hate for the lady Oonagh who had driven me to this lonely place. I hated my father for his weakness. I hated my brothers as well, for not being there when I needed them. Besides, they too were men, and so how dared they try to make it better?